living the Tiki lifestyle with Ray Wyland

Month: February 2016

I wasn’t a good boy over the holidays. It seemed like I was going to one party after another between Christmas, Thanksgiving, and New Year’s Eve. Needless to say, I put on a couple pounds. As I type this, I’m on a diet—A low-carb diet, to be exact. That means no bread, no pasta, and no sugar. Wait! Does that means I can’t enjoy a Tiki cocktail? Most Tiki cocktails include various syrups and juices! But have no fear! I have a recipe for a low-carb Mai Tai!

This is the first of what I hope to be many Tiki Field Reports. What is a Tiki Field Report you might ask? A Tiki Field Report is going to be a review of a particular day visiting a Tiki bar. It will include pictures and information on who came along, what did they drank, what they thought, who was bartending, etc. I would like to get my friends involved with this blog and I think this is a good way of doing that. A Tiki Field Report is not going to be the same as an official Tiki bar review. A Tiki bar review will be just about the bar, giving an overview of what the place is like, how the drinks are, what kind of music they play, the bar’s history, and so on.

Back in the early fall of 2015, my very good friends Christina, Tom, and I were sitting around thinking about having a Christmas party. The question was, what type of Christmas party to have? I had an idea and I’m pretty sure you all can guess what it was: a Tiki Christmas party!

Hey gang! This is my first Tiki bar review and I figured I wanted to keep it sort of local. I live in Seattle. Bothell is about 25 minutes away (with no traffic). In Bothell is a Tiki bar called North Shore Lagoon. Before I begin with the review of the Tiki bar itself, I need to give a little background about the North Shore Lagoon.

The North Shore Lagoon is part of the McMenamins Anderson School. If you’re not familiar with McMenamins, they are a bar and restaurant chain that buys and restores old, classic, historical buildings and turns them into pubs, restaurants, movie theaters, and hotels. The cool thing is they maintain the integrity the of the buildings they acquire. They have places all over the Pacific Northest including Portland, Centraila, McMinnville, Mill Creek, and now Bothell.

What McMenamins did with the Anderson School is completely turn the entire school—which is several buildings—into a large entertainment complex. There’s a fine dinning restaurant, a pub, a movie theater, a convention center, a hotel, and last but not least, a Tiki bar, which of course is the North Shore Lagoon.

So… why am I doing this Blog?

Bars, bars, and more bars…

There are so many types of bars. Let’s name a few, shall we? There are dive bars, sports bars, Irish pubs, English pubs, craft cocktail lounges, breweries, and so on and so on. When you’re heading out to a bar, you’re going out to have a good time and enjoy a drink or two. Maybe sometimes you want to have a little escape. With a Tiki bar, the escape is paramount. A good Tiki bar should create a mood—a relaxing mood. When you step into a Tiki bar, the outside world doesn’t exist anymore. The combination of a Tiki cocktail (which usually has two or more shots of alcohol!) with the decor and music creates a unique tone. It’s a tone and feeling that can only be achieved at a Tiki bar, at least for me. To be honest, I rarely even get anything to drink when I’m with friends at any other type of bar.

Of course, all Tiki Bars are not created equal. Some Tiki bars got it dialed in! Others, not so much. This blog is my journey of going to and checking out Tiki bars anywhere and everywhere! I plan on posting pictures, talking to the owners, and giving my take on each Tiki bar I visit.

This blog is going to be about more than Tiki bars and drinks, though. I’ll discuss music, clothing, actual cocktail recipes, lifestyle and more. I hope you all enjoy this blog! -Ray